Court dismisses Najib's appeal to revive civil suit against ex-AG

Court dismisses Najib's appeal to revive civil suit against ex-AG

Hariz Mohd
Published: Jan 13, 2026 11:01 AM
Updated: 3:33 PM



The Court of Appeal this morning dismissed former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak's appeal to reinstate a RM1.9 million civil suit against former attorney-general Tommy Thomas.

In its judgment, a three-member bench led by P Ravinthran said that while the court disagreed with the High Court's earlier finding that an attorney-general has immunity against a civil suit, it was correct in finding that Najib's suit was premature.

The appellate court also ordered Najib to pay RM12,000 in costs to Thomas.

"The appeal is dismissed," Ravinthran said when reading out the decision today.

Two other members of the bench were Court of Appeal judges Wong Kian Kheong and Nadzarin Wok Nordin.

In their summary of judgment, the judges cited that they disagreed with High Court judge Ahmad Bache's finding that Thomas had immunity and his actions while in office were non-justiciable.

"With respect to the issue of immunity and justifiability, we disagree with the High Court decision as Article 145 (3) of the Federal Constitution does not confer immunity to the attorney-general with respect to civil suits taken against him personally.

"The cases that were cited by the High Court do not apply, as there are criminal cases where the discretion of the attorney-general was challenged.

"However, we agree with the High Court decision that since the criminal cases had not commenced when the instance civil suit was filed, the action for misfeasance, malicious process, and negligence is clearly premature. We also find that the tort of malicious process does not exist in our law."

Najib’s allegations

In his civil suit filed in 2020, Najib alleged Thomas had committed misfeasance in public office when he prosecuted him over charges related to the 1MDB case.

Najib’s lawsuit against Thomas is over the former finance minister’s alleged wrongful prosecution in four ongoing criminal cases, namely the RM2.28 billion 1MDB corruption case, the 1MDB audit report case, the RM6.6 billion International Petroleum Investment Company criminal breach of trust case, and the RM27 million SRC International money laundering case.

The former Pekan MP sought a declaration that Thomas had committed misfeasance in public office as well as RM1.9 million in damages, including negotiation fees for the audit team to review documentation for the preparation of facts to deal with the prosecution against him.

However, the High Court struck out the suit on Nov 25, 2022.

Ahmad had ruled that the former premier failed to provide evidence that Thomas committed misfeasance in public office, malicious process and negligence in the four court cases.

Ahmad pointed out that legal precedents still affirmed the fact that an attorney-general’s constitutional power under Article 145 of the Federal Constitution to commence or retract criminal charges cannot be challenged in court.